REVIEW: Godland (dir. Hlynur Pálmason)

WHO’S IN GODLAND?

Elliott Crosset Hove, Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson, Jacob Lohmann, Vic Carmen Sonne, Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir, Hilmar Guðjónsson

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Hlynur Pálmason (director, writer), Eva Jakobsen, Mikkel Jersin, Katrin Pors and Anton Máni Svansson (producers), Alex Zhang Hungtai (composer), Maria von Hausswolff (cinematographer), Julius Krebs Damsbo (editor)

WHAT IS GODLAND ABOUT?

In the late 19th century, a Danish priest (Hove) makes a perilous journey across Iceland…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON GODLAND?

Shortly after beginning, Icelandic filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason’s sweeping psychological epic Godland makes the curious on-screen claim that it was inspired by a number of wet plate photographs that had been found somewhere in Iceland, which mark the first documented evidence of the country’s southeast coast.

This is, however, a fabrication; the backstory was invented by Pálmason to help him during the writing process, but he apparently told financiers and many members of the cast and crew that they were in fact real, presumably as a means to motivate them during production. After all, if you’re in the middle of a vastly beautiful but mentally taxing environment shooting a movie that’s all about a guy slowly but surely losing all of his inhibitions and sanity, you would also need something to cling onto in order to make sense of it all.

The results are a bit more mixed, though, for while Godland is undoubtedly a hugely admirable filmmaking effort that tests the limits of humanity in daring and magnificently shot ways, at the same time it is quite the challenge to sit through, largely due to an often torturously slow pace that ends up frustrating the viewer more than it invigorates them.

Set at the turn of the nineteenth century, when the Kingdom of Denmark claimed Iceland as its own territory, Lutheran priest Lucas (Elliott Crosset Hove) is tasked with travelling to Iceland to oversee the construction of a new church on a remote Danish settlement. Somewhat perversely, instead of simply sailing to the destination, Lucas chooses to make the full cross-country journey to see and document the Icelandic landscapes, accompanied by a group of local labourers including a friendly translator (Hilmar Guðjónsson) and guide Ragnar (Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson), who greatly despises Danes. As Lucas makes his way across the land toward the settlement, a series of devastating encounters and events cause him to slowly start questioning everything he believes in, from his faith to his mission to even his own morals.

Admittedly, it is hard to not talk about Godland without bringing up Martin Scorsese’s Silence as a reference point. Beyond the similarities in plot (that movie also featured priests venturing to harsh new lands on a religious mission), both films share a deeply bleak tone that challenges the very notion of faith and pushes it right up to the cliff’s edge. Pálmason’s film clearly takes heavy inspiration from Scorsese’s passion project, in that it too goes to extreme lengths to portray the psychological unravelling of its main figure, as well as their violent see-sawing to and from the doctrines that they had previously devoted their entire life to.

Both films are also extremely well-made, with this one in particular boasting some fantastic cinematography by Maria von Hausswolff, which incorporates a strikingly muted colour palette and captures the absolutely gorgeous collection of hills, waterfalls, rivers, and icy domains that Iceland has to offer within a boxed aspect ratio that creates claustrophobia in the most open of landscapes. It is utterly gorgeous to look at, as Pálmason gently takes the viewer by the hand through his main character’s grisly and psychologically complex descent into temptation and depravity, one which rivals the awe and spectacle of Scorsese’s similar picture, and would put even Heart of Darkness author Joseph Conrad to shame.

However, as breath-taking and astonishingly visual as the film is (so much so that it’s almost worth seeing on the big screen just for the cinematography alone), Godland is ultimately a rather cold viewing experience. Across nearly two-and-a-half hours, Pálmason certainly gets you to feel just how taxing and tormenting this journey is for his protagonist and his reluctant company, but rarely does he make you care all that much about them or what their ultimate mission is.

More often than not, the film feels like a highly stylised nature documentary, where plot and character is more of an afterthought next to the vast nature of the visuals being captured, which leaves you less interested in them as you oddly spend a lot of time with them without actually getting to know them. After a point, I had forgotten what this priest was even sent to Iceland to do in the first place, because the narrative is so transparent and loose – especially during the film’s second half, which all but completely stays in one location as very few developments are made – that it’s easy to lose track of where you’re even at in the indulgent runtime.

At least in Scorsese’s film, you knew all the way through what it was about, and you genuinely did care about what happened with Andrew Garfield’s character as he’s legitimately put through all sorts of hell by his oppressors. Meanwhile, the central priest in Godland is someone who you certainly see being driven to an utter mental breakdown as he experiences continuous torment and tragedy, often by his own travelling companions, but you never feel as closely connected with him as a character, or at least enough to identify or understand why he’s so rapidly undergoing these stark shifts in personality, from a straight-laced man of the cloth to an irritable stick-in-the-mud who’s just kind of a dick, even to those who give him shelter.

The inability to emotionally connect with the plot and characters on the screen makes this film feel so much longer to sit through, to where it is only the unmistakably beautiful cinematography that is holding your attention as it snail-paces itself to the finish line. Films can absolutely work with slower pacing and extended runtimes – hell, Scorsese’s Silence is much closer to three hours than this film is, and that one works perfectly fine – but they need to earn it, with an enticing plot and/or characters that you want to follow to the ends of the earth.

Sadly, Godland is the kind of film where multiple scenes will go by where nothing much happens at all (there’s wedding sequence that could rival the one from The Deer Hunter in terms of length), and when something shocking finally does occur it’s way beyond the point where you should be interested, because while it’s visually astounding there is nothing solid elsewhere to hook you as much.

Ultimately, while Godland is a movie with great ambition (that opening fake backstory in and of itself is proof of an attempt to try and build a mythos), it succumbs to an empty narrative that doesn’t make the whole journey worthwhile.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Godland is an ambitious psychological epic that boasts some incredible cinematography, which alone makes it worth seeing on the big screen, but an empty narrative with closed-off characters make it a rather cold experience.